Optical Detectors

Requirements for detectors

• High sensitivity at the operating wavelengths
• High fidelity
• Large electrical response to the received optical signal
• Short response time to obtain a suitable bandwidth
• A minimum noise introduced by the detector
• Stability of performance characteristics
• Small size
• Low bias voltages
• High reliability
• Low cost
Photodiodes are similar to regular semiconductor
diodes except that they may be either exposed (to
detect vacuum UV or X-rays) or packaged with a
window or optical fiber connection to allow light to
reach the sensitive part of the device. Many diodes
designed for use specifically as a photodiode use a
PIN junction rather than a p-n junction, to increase
the speed of response.
 Photodiodes
• Due to above requirements, only photodiodes
are used as photo detectors in optical
communication systems
• Positive-Intrinsic-Negative (pin) photodiode
– No internal gain
• Avalanche Photo Diode (APD)
– An internal gain of M due to self multiplication
• Photodiodes are reverse biased for normal
operation
 Basic pin photodiode circuit

• Incident photons trigger a photocurrent Ip in the

external circuitry by pumping energy
Photocurrent  Incident Optical Power
 PIN Photodiode

 It is a junction diode in which an undoped intrinsic ( i ) region is inserted

between relatively thin p region and relatively thick n region.
 Diode is reverse biased so that the entire i- region is depleted and has a
strong electric field.
 Light absorbed in intrinsic region produce free electron hole pairs,
provided that photon energy is high enough.
 These carriers which are responsible for photocurrent are swept across the
region with high velocity and are collected across the reverse –biased
junction.
 This gives rise to a current flow in the external circuit called the
photocurrent.
 pin energy-band diagram

hc
c  A particular semiconductor material
can be used only over a limited
Eg wavelength range
 pin energy-band diagram
hc 1.24
c   μm Cut off wavelength depends on the
E g E g (eV ) bandgap energy

Cut off wavelength for Si is about 1.06 µm and for Ge it is 1.6 µm.
For longer wavelengths the photon energy is not sufficient to
excite an electron from the valence band to the conduction band.
 Materials of construction
• The material used to make a photodiode is critical to defining its
properties, because only photons with sufficient energy to excite
electrons across the material's bandgap will produce significant
photocurrents.
• Materials commonly used to produce photodiodes include:

Wavelength range (nm)

Material
(for good sensitivity)
Silicon 190–1100
Germanium 400–1700
Indium gallium
800–2600
arsenide
InGaAsP <1000-3500
 Quantum Efficiency( )

Quantum Efficiency () = number of e-h pairs generated / number of

incident photons
Ip / q

P0 / h
Ip average photocurrent produced by a steady-state average optical
power Po incident on the photodetector
q is the charge of the electron
hv photon energy
 Responsivity ()

Responsivity is the ratio of photocurrent to the incident

optical power on the photodetector.

q
Ip
  mA/mW
P0 h
 hc
c  Responsivity
Eg
=
 Avalanche Photodiode
• More sophisticated structure than the PIN photodiode in order to create an
extremely high electric field region(app 3*105 V/cm).
• Internally multiplies the primary signal photocurrent.

Impact Ionization
• The photo generated carriers must traverse a region where a very high electric
field is present.
• In this region, a photogenerated hole or electron can gain enough energy to
excite new-electron hole pairs.
Avalanche Effect
• The newly created carriers are also accelerated by the high electric field, thus
gaining enough energy to cause further impact ionization.
• This phenomenon is the avalanche effect.
• Often requires high reverse bias voltages(50 to 400 V) in order that the new
carriers created can themselves produce additional carriers.
Reach Through Avalanche Photodiode
 Reach Through Avalanche Photodiode(RAPD)

• Commonly used structure for achieving carrier multiplication with very little excess
noise.
• RAPD is composed of a high-resistivity p-type material deposited as an epitaxial
layer on a p+substrate followed by the construction of an n+ layer.
• The configuration is referred to as p+πpn+ reach-through structure.
• The π layer is the intrinsic layer with p doping.
• When a low reverse-bias voltage is applied, most of the potential drop is across
the pn+ junction.
• The depletion layer widens with increasing bias until a certain voltage is reached.
• At this voltage the peak electric field at the pn+ junction is about 5-10 percent
below that needed to cause avalanche breakdown.
• At this point , the depletion layer just “reaches through” to the nearly intrinsic π
region.
 Reach Through Avalanche Photodiode(RAPD)

• Light enters the device through the n+ region and is absorbed in the π material.
• After being absorbed, the photon gives up its energy, thereby creating-electron-hole
pairs.
• The photogenerated electrons drift through the π region in the pn+ region, where a
high electric field exists where carrier multiplication takes place.

Ionization Rate
Average number of electron-hole pairs created by a carrier per unit distance travelled.
Electron ionization rate=α
Hole ionization rate= β
Ratio K= α/ β is a measure of the photodetector performance.
Reach Through Avalanche Photodiode(RAPD)

Avalanche PD’s have an internal gain M

IM : average value of the total multiplied current

IM
M  Ip: primary unmultiplied photocurrent
Ip M = 1 for PIN diodes

The responsivity of the Avalanche PD’s is given by

APD  PIN M
 Benefits and Drawbacks of avalanche photodiode’s

Benefits
• Detection of very low light levels often encountered in optical fiber
communications.
• Provide an increase in sensitivity between 5 and 15 dB over PIN photodiodes.
• Wider dynamic range.
Drawbacks
• Fabrication difficulties due to their more complex structure and hence
increased cost.
• Random nature of the gain mechanism which gives an additional noise
contribution.
• Often high bias voltages requires which are wavelength dependant.
• Temperature compensation is necessary to stabilize the operation of the
device.
 Signal to Noise Ratio
Signal power from photocurrent
SNR 
Detector Noise + Amplifier Noise
For high SNR
• The Photodetector must have a large quantum
efficiency (large responsivity or gain) to generate large
signal power
• Detector and amplifier noise must be low

SNR Can NOT be improved by amplification

 Detector Current
• The direct current value is denoted by, IP ; capitol main entry and
capital suffix.
• The time varying (either randomly or periodically) current with a zero
mean is denoted by, ip small main entry and small suffix.
• Therefore, the total current Ip is the sum of the DC component IP and
the AC component ip .

I P  I p  ip
T /2
1
 Lim T  
2 2
i p i p (t ) dt
T T / 2
 Quantum (Shot Noise)
Due to optical power fluctuation because light is made up of
discrete number of photons

i2
Q  2qI p BM F ( M ) 2

F(M): APD Noise Figure

F(M) ~= Mx (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) depends on the material
For PIN diodes F(M) and M are unity.
Ip: Mean Detected Current
B = Bandwidth
 Dark/Leakage Current Noise
There will be some (dark and leakage ) current without any
incident light. This current generates two types of noise

Bulk Dark Current Noise

(Due to electrons and holes thermally i 2
DB  2qI D BM F ( M )
2
generated )

ID: Dark Current

Surface Leakage Current Noise

(Due to surface defects , bias voltage , cleanliness i 2
DS  2qI L B
and surface area.)

(not multiplied by M) IL: Leakage Current

 Thermal Noise

The photodetector load resistor RL contributes a mean-square

thermal (Johnson) noise current

i2
T  4 K BTB / RL

KB: Boltzmann’s constant = 1.38054 X 10(-23) J/K

T is the absolute Temperature

• Quantum and Thermal are the important noise

mechanisms in all optical receivers
• RIN (Relative Intensity Noise) will also appear in analog
links
 Signal to Noise Ratio
Detected current = AC component (ip) +
DC component (Ip)

Signal Power = <ip2>M2

i p2 M 2
SNR 
2q( I p  I D ) M 2 F ( M ) B  2qI L B  4k BTB / RL
Typically not all the noise terms will have equal weight.
For PIN photodiodes, the dominating noise currents are the Thermal noise
currents and the active elements of the amplifier circuitry.
For avalanche photodiodes, the thermal noise is of lesser importance and the
photodetector noises usually dominate.
 Signal to Noise Ratio

Since the noise figure F(M) increases with M, there always exist an
optimum value of M that maximizes the SNR. For sinusoidally
modulated signal, the optimum value of M is given by

Where F(M) is approximated by Mx

Draw backs
Phototransistor